Many processes, chemical, mechanical or other, take place with the generation of process heat, which can have an unfavourable effect on the process cycle itself or the initial materials used, because for example the materials involved in the process are temperature-sensitive or the change in temperature influences the rate of the process and makes an orderly process control difficult. For this reason, it is common to stabilise a process cycle by, for example, conducting away the generated process heat by means of suitable cooling devices or processes.
In the reverse case, it is also possible that heat has to be fed to processes in order to get to the process under way or to operate it in a controlled manner at a preferred temperature.
Processes taking place in containers are usually temperature-regulated via the container wall, for example by cooling or hot water pipes running at the wall, or by the fact that a further outer container disposed radially spaced apart from the first container is placed around the first container, so that a cavity is formed between the two containers, through which cavity a fluid flow, which may be a hot water flow or a coolant flow, can be conveyed for the transport of the process heat.
Designs of the latter-mentioned type are well known from the prior art, for example from JPH09239253A, the subject-matter whereof is an agitator ball mill, wherein a coolant flow is enabled in the cavity between the container walls, in that the entry of the coolant into the cavity takes place through a coolant inlet disposed in the container wall of the agitator ball mill and the heated cooling water can drain away again through a coolant outlet also disposed in the container wall.
In DE 20 2005 000 280U1, this concept it is pursued further in that not only the cavity in the outer container, but also a correspondingly constituted inner container is supplied in such a manner with a coolant flow.
A cooling device, wherein cold air is used as a cooling medium, is described in DE 602 24 331 T2.
A common feature with all these devices is that the location of the corresponding supply connections, i.e. the inlet and outlet openings for the coolant flow, is disposed in the container wall; this has the advantage of shorter paths, is easy to implement and at the same time reduces the number of any transfer connections that need to be created.
A drawback with such a concept, however, is that the accesses to the coolant supply or the associated connections in and/or on the respective device are disposed spread apart and are therefore bound to have a relatively high space requirement for connection spaces, maintenance areas and so forth. This usually results in a system arrangement in which individual systems must have a much greater spacing from one another than would be required for a normal operation.
The problem underlying the present invention, therefore, is to design an agitator ball mill of the aforementioned type in such a way that a more compact structure emerges, on which the connection lines are easily accessible and the maintenance outlay is at the same time reduced
The aforementioned problem is solved by an agitator ball mill with a fluid circuit and at least one flange lead-through according to the features of the present invention.